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Pastel

Here is a quick way to make Pastel. Pastel is a quick snack made with a dough filled with whatever you want. You can fill it with shredded chicken, shrimp, tuna or what I mainly see it filled with is ground beef. Cook your meat whatever way you want. For instance if you are doing it with ground beef. Just put a little bit of oil in a pot and chop up some onions, pepper and garlic and cook it for about 1 minute just until its browned. Then throw in your ground beef, season it with salt, all purpose seasoning ( I personally love using Lawry's all purpose seasoning) and black pepper. Cook it for about 10 minutes until cooked and if you want you can leave it just like that for your filling or you can use just a touch of tomato sauce for it to not be so dry. Thats all - typically that is the same steps you would use to do it with chicken or anything else. ( I like it dry with no sauce. But that is totally up to you.)

Then you can do one of two things. Make your own dough or buy it already made at your local grocery store. in the hispanic or cultural section. It looks like this.

If you choose to make your own dough. Here is how:

Pastel dough

2 cups flour

1/4 cup butter

1/3 cup warm milk

Mix it all together until it forms a type of dough. Roll it out until it is flat and use any big round bottle cap or something big enough to cut it into big 5"x 5" circles. Then fill it. close it with water and tightly seal it with a fork just as it shows in this one minute video.

You see it is so simple that even my twin sisters husband can do it. kkkkk... now if he can do it anyone can : - )

By the way my sister has a great blog all about dating the right way take a look

Once this step is done take a pot and heat it with oil and once your oil is hot. Deep fry your pastel for about 4 minutes or until golden and crisp. Remove it from the oil and set it on a few sheets of paper towel to drain the oil. Serve warm

Quick and easy. There you have your Pastel. Another healthier alternative would be to instead of frying in brush it lightly with an egg wash ( 1 egg mixed with a little water ) and cook it in the oven on 350F for a few minutes.